THE NEW YORKER, AUGUST 10 & 17, 2015
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residents as allies. He urged me to con-
sider what might have happened if
Wilson had known Brown, or Brown's
grandmother, and was able to say, "Does
Miss Jenny know you're out here?" Such
a question, Reverend Wilson said, has a
more potent moral authority.
One afternoon this spring, I accom-
panied Darren and Barb Wilson
to a park near their house, where they
watched Barb's younger son practice base-
ball. Darren wore shades and a baseball
cap, and we stayed in the Wilsons' S.U.V.
Wilson says that, after the grand jury
cleared him, he wanted to rejoin Fergu-
son's police force. But he was told that
his presence would put other o cers at
risk. "They put that on me,"Wilson said.
He worked for two weeks at a boot store,
stocking inventory, but quit when re-
porters started calling the store. "No
matter what I do, they try to get a story
o of it," he told me.
After the shooting, Barb was reluc-
tant to return to the streets of Ferguson,
for fear of being identified as Wilson's
wife. The department recently o ered
her a job as a dispatcher---with a sub-
stantial pay cut. Barb decided to retire
early. In the car, she turned to Darren
and said, "I just want that lottery ticket
we bought in Piedmont to be a winner."
I asked Wilson what he would do if
the Ferguson police force o ered him
his job back. He seemed startled. "I
would---um---"
"I would not allow him," Barb said.
"I would want to do it for a day," Dar-
ren said, finally, to show people that he
was not "defeated."
In our many discussions, Wilson
rarely spoke of Michael Brown. Twice,
I asked him if he had reflected on what
kind of person Brown was.The first time
I asked, it was early May, and Brown's
parents had just filed their civil lawsuit
against him. "You do realize that his par-
ents are suing me?" he said. "So I have
to think about him." He went on, "Do
I think about who he was as a person?
Not really, because it doesn't matter at
this point. Do I think he had the best
upbringing? No. Not at all." His tone
was striking, given Wilson's own turbu-
lent childhood.
Six weeks later, Wilson told me that
he had never really had a chance to con-
template who Brown was, because he had
been preoccupied by the maelstrom that
followed the shooting. I asked him if he
thought Brown was truly a "bad guy," or
just a kid who had got himself into a bad
situation. "I only knew him for those
forty-five seconds in which he was trying
to kill me, so I don't know," Wilson said.
Barb also said that she rarely thought
about Brown. But she thought about a
woman named Stephanie Edwards, whom
she knew well. Edwards was the mother
of Louis Head, Brown's stepfather. Be-
fore becoming a cop, Barb had worked
with Edwards at a grocery store. Barb
says that they talked every day for roughly
ten years, learning minute details of each
other's lives, but they didn't keep in touch
when Barb became a cop.
After the shooting, Edwards joined
the protests, appearing at a rally wearing
a T-shirt emblazoned with Brown's face.
"We are tired of police brutality," she told
the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. "I came out
for justice." Barb wonders what would
happen if she and Edwards crossed paths
again. Barb assumes that much of the
world assumes that she is a racist, but
clings to the idea that Edwards knows
better: "I know that she knows, in her
heart, that I am not like that." (Edwards
could not be reached for comment.)
One recent afternoon, I met with Sa-
brina Webb, Michael Brown's cousin, on
Canfield Drive, at the spot where Brown
was killed. A makeshift memorial was in
place: a pile of wilted flowers and sun-
scorched Teddy bears. She recalled that,
when she left her apartment the day after
the shooting, "you could still see brain
matter on the street." She moved out
soon afterward.
Webb was still angry that Wilson had
o ered condolences only after the grand
jury gave its decision. Wilson was inter-
viewed by George Stephanopoulos, of
ABC, and he said of Brown's parents,
"I'm sorry that their son lost his life. It
wasn't the intention of that day. It's what
occurred that day, and there's nothing
you can say that's going to make a par-
ent feel better." Wilson also rea rmed,
"I did my job that day." I asked Webb
how she felt about Wilson. "Anger and
hatred," she said. "There's no forgiveness."
Michael Brown, Sr., also feels "resent-
ment" toward Wilson, and feels that noth-
ing, not even Wilson's going to jail, can
rectify what happened. When we spoke
of the day of the shooting, I asked him
what he believed had happened at Fer-
guson Market and Liquor. "That's just
out of character," he said. He also insisted
that the video didn't "show all the facts,"
though he wouldn't elaborate. His son,
he said, "was an average kid that did teen-
age things and had fun and tried to live
his life." Brown, Sr., said that two images
of his son never leave his consciousness.
One is from the last time he saw him
smiling. It was on August 1st, the day
that Brown graduated. They went out to
eat. "He had on a nice tie," Brown, Sr.,
recalled, quietly. The other memory is of
his son lying on the ground, dead.
Since the shooting, gun sales in Fer-
guson have spiked, and there is little sense
of reconciliation. The sixteen members
of the Ferguson Commission have been
charged with proposing policy reforms.
Rasheen Aldridge, the activist, who is a
member of the commission, told me that
last August he believed that Wilson de-
served the death penalty. Since then, his
views have softened: "I can't hold hatred
in me for too long." He still can't decide
what kind of punishment Wilson de-
serves. "I want to be, like, 'He needs to
go to jail.' But then there's also that other
side of me that understands everything.
He is probably in prison, in a way."
At one point, I asked Wilson if he
missed walking outside and going to
restaurants. He told me that he still ate
out, but only at certain places. "We try
to go somewhere---how do I say this cor-
rectly?---with like-minded individuals,"
he said. "You know. Where it's not a mix-
ing pot."
Wilson has received several thou-
sand letters from supporters, and he has
written thank-you notes to almost all
of his correspondents. Many of the let-
ters are from police o cers. Some are
from kids. One card reads, "Thanks for
protecting us!" Wilson proudly showed
me a drawer, in his living room, which
contained dozens of police-department
patches from cops expressing their sup-
port. None of those cops, however, had
o ered him a job.